


Frightful Tides of Smoke and Ash

by FireEye



Category: Final Fantasy V
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 16:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Butz drops in on Faris with a mystery to be unraveled.





	Frightful Tides of Smoke and Ash

The measured clip of her boots kept its own restless time as she paced the deck. The midday sun beat down on her shoulders, complemented by a refreshing breeze that swept through the linen weave of her tunic. Her gaze was on the horizon.

Though she wasn’t smiling, there was nothing but confidence in her bearing. A rune-etched blade of legend hung casually from her belt, balanced with a blood-hued dagger. She needed neither to cut a dashing figure.

_This_ was where Faris belonged.

The white sails of their quarry bobbed on the water, a fair distance ahead against the pale blue sky. A merchant ship, too far off its course.

There was something amiss about that. It could have been a dangerous mistake, made by an inexperienced crew – but only an equally inexperienced pirate would take that for granted. More than likely, it was either a failed gambit on the captain’s part, or the poor judgment of whomever had him by the purse-strings, to escape notice, which suggested they were carrying something valuable... or it was a trap, which would have been a bloody insult.

Regardless, it piqued her interest.

Her ship charted a swifter course, but they were at the mercy of the same wind. The other ship’s uncanny speed over the waves suggested they carried a mage on board, but even a mage could only pour so much of themselves into sails before they needed rest.

And Faris had more than a mere few tricks of her own.

But the timing was imperative.

The distance between waned as the daylight wore on. Faris waited as long as she feasibly could, then closed her eyes.

Her lips moved in a silent litany as she felt within herself and beyond herself. To memories of spray on a summer’s day. To memories of torrential, windswept thunderstorms over choppy seas. To the spirit of the ocean, itself.

The singularly focused prayer touched a familiar presence in the back of her mind, and Faris released the buildup of energy to slither into the ocean. The calm water ahead of the merchant ship churned as the sea dragon materialized, craning its long neck towards the bow. Lightning sparked and danced along the ship’s rigging.

The ship pulled hard off its path, offering them a wide opening to close the gap. Faris gave a sharp signal to intercept.

The cantrip, she held a moment longer. Syldra’s thin, trilling cry drifted across the waves before the phantom beast dissolved into sea foam.

Her steady gaze returned to the billowing sails ahead; they were close enough now she could spy men scurrying about on the rigging. There was little more exhilarating in life than capturing a ship – saving the world might have been a distant second – and once they’d drawn up alongside, Faris herself led the charge up the boarding nets.

The surrender was swift.

The merchant fleet captain wasn’t a fighter, and it was evident. Faris had him humbled without so much as a braggart fool’s boast. There were several men who might have once been warriors amidst his crew, but hers worked fast to overwhelm any would-be heroes.

As far as conquests went, she wouldn’t have thought twice of this one, hadn’t her first mate returned from scouring the lower decks in a fret. Leof called to her, a wavering uncertainty in his voice, and she turned in time to see the man he shoved towards her hit the deck.

A sphere slipped from the prisoner’s hand.

It rolled across the deck towards her; Faris stopped it with the flat of her boot, then stooped to retrieve it. Smooth and clear crystal, except for a flat facet of quartz through its center, it fit in the palm of her hand.

It didn’t seem much of a prize, but looks were often deceptive. Thoughtful, she puzzled over it – whether it was merely decorative or had some deeper meaning...

Her attention drifted to the man, and her eyes narrowed sharply. With a flick of her wrist, the tip of her blade came up to snag the Crystal pendant dangling from the glass-beaded necklace he wore. More languidly, she raised the sword higher, until its edge pressed against his chin, encouraging him to raise his head.

The flat of the blade came to rest against his cheek as Faris found herself staring into a familiar pair of blue eyes. His smile was bright and cheerful, and he was completely undaunted by her prowess. If anything, he was outright charmed by it.

Faris scowled.

But if that didn’t raise a question or two.

Sweeping her sword back to her side, she turned away. The captain of the merchant ship remained puffed up in indignity, but harmless. Her crew kept busy without direction, keeping retaliation at bay.

Scrubbing her cheek, Faris turned to Leof.

“Take e’erythin’ ain’t batten’d down, ‘cept the food and water t’get back t’port,” she told him. He nodded briskly, and started off to see the order carried through.

Her gaze was drawn to the crystal sphere in her hand, and she called after him. “Oi!”

She threw the thing to Leof, and gave Butz a thwap on the arm with the flat of her sword before stepping past. “Take ‘im, too.”

~*~

The cabin was lavish with a practical edge. The tools of the trade, along with all the spoils. The sea could swallow it all into the deep, in the end, but what worth was thievery if not to enjoy it?

Reclined in a plush chair that resembled nothing less than a throne, Faris stared at the Crystal shard. The beads draped over her fingers were an assorted mix of translucent white and blue and storm-cloud grey.

The shard resonated with the Wind Crystal. Power rolled off it in pulses and waves, whispering with the voices of eons.

Faris sighed deeply.

In her other hand, the crystal orb. It held no energy, no presence. There was nothing about it at all, just an unadorned bauble.

The door to her cabin opened. Leof trudged in, followed by two men – one in irons, the other his guard, for all the good that it would do. She’d left him in the hold until after dinner, and a stiff drink, but her curiosity was getting the better of her.

Butz didn’t seem fazed by the experience. 

“Is all this really necessary?”

“Ye tell me.” Faris didn’t return his easy smile. “Here I be thinkin’ ye were enjoyin’ y’rself.”

“It’s been too long,” he remarked; the simplicity of the statement echoed in a shrug. “I’ve missed you.”

Faris regarded him coolly.

If there was an answer to this riddle, it was standing right in front of her.

His gaze wandered to the crystal shard, and her fingers closed lightly over it.

She made two curt gestures. At the first, the chains were loosened from their bonds, and let slide to the floor. At the second, the guard left. Rising to her feet, Faris strode across the Cabin. Leof loomed behind their wayward guest, but she paid him little mind.

Butz rubbed his wrists absently, and she held the shard out to him by its string of beads.

There was no point in keeping it. She’d made certain to lose hers.

Power granted by the Crystals could not be stripped away so easily.

He took it, and the beads clicked and clacked as they slipped from her fingers. He slipped them over his head, and tucked the crystal under his tunic.

She held up the orb. As Butz moved to take it, however, she rolled it back into her palm and snatched her hand away.

“The devil be this?”

His smile deepened into a playful grin.

“No one knows.”

Which wasn’t to mean he didn’t have an idea.

“Ye went through a lot of trouble to find me, lad,” she observed brusquely. “So let’s have it.”

Undaunted by her hawkish gaze, he held up his hand. Faris scowled darkly, and raised hers to drop the orb into his palm.

Butz made a show of rolling up his sleeves. He held the orb up to show her from this way and that, but she’d already looked it over herself. There was nothing to see, beyond the facet in its center; a quaint bit of craftsmanship on the part of whoever had crafted the thing from rough crystal, but nothing phenomenally eye-catching.

Letting it rest in the cup of his palm, he took a breath. His eyes narrowed in concentration; he spoke a word, and the lanterns whispered out. He spoke another, and a white spark lit up the room.

Not from the orb, but from the magician.

A spray of refracted light illuminated the cabin. Pinpoints of light fluttered along the ceiling, the windows... they speckled her clothes, and danced in Butz’ hair. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to pick out the finer details.

“It was brought into the Ancient Library.” He explained, “A farmer found it; her Chocobo fell into a cave under her land while she was tilling her field... one that no one remembers being there before the worlds merged. There’s no knowledge of it among the scholars, and no one was able to discover any texts referencing it before I left.”

Butz’s eyes followed the pattern overhead briefly; his gaze fell back to her, his grin pale in the dim light.

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“That’s-...!” Leof blurted out, before he could catch himself.

Faris spared him half a glance. They both knew exactly what they were looking at, and she doubted above all if Butz brought the thing to her that he didn’t know, too.

“That be a star chart.”

One that someone had evidently gone through a _lot_ of trouble to hide.

Butz must have been able to read what she was thinking off her face, because he was giving her a self-satisfied look.

“Right, then,” she admitted, raising her chin, “Ye got my attention.”

The light faded, leaving them in the dim of the cabin. With a flick of Butz’ fingers, the lanterns sputtered to flame.

Without another word, Faris strode past him. Leof moved to join her at the table; on its surface was unfurled a single world map, and from the drawers beneath it Faris drew a selection of smaller maps and charts.

Butz wandered over to lean elbows on the table, and Faris watched him trace a bit of coastline with his thumb from the corner of her eye. The merged world wasn’t fully known yet, and the puzzle he’d brought to them would take time to unravel.

But then, even beyond the way he smiled when he caught her eye, she knew why he’d brought it to her. There was no one better who knew the sea – below or above – than a crew of pirates.

~*~

The moon was setting over the horizon; shrouded in a thin veil of clouds, it cast the world in a pale glow. 

She’d been waxing when this little mystery started. She’d be waning again soon enough. For miles around, the surrounding ocean appeared peacefully calm as the ship cut through the waves.

Butz leaned heavily against the forecastle’s rail; eyes closed, he enjoyed the wind that whipped past. Coming up to stand beside him, Faris tapped the ashes from the bowl of her pipe onto the deck, and packed it again. The spark she summoned to light it cast a warm glow over her fingers; the embers brightened and faded again quickly.

They stood in comfortable silence, permeated by the creak of the ship’s rigging around them, the sound of the waves against the hull, and the sigh of smoke that Faris breathed.

At length, Butz opened his eyes.

With the light from the moon fading, the night sky grew deeper and brighter. They had chased the stars halfway around the world, in search of a sky that they weren’t certain even existed. And if they did, there was no pinpointing what season or year under which their mysterious chart was made.

But the abstract web of stars had grown eerily familiar, if there wasn’t anything else of it thus far. Beyond a wide expanse of rolling sea.

“Hey, Faris...”

She glanced at him briefly.

“This might not have been...” Feeling along the worn grain under his fingertips, Butz admitted, “This might turn out to be nothing. There’s no telling how old that thing is, and what it means... I wanted you to know... Even if-” 

There was a shout from the crow’s nest. Faris glanced up at the lookout, then, stowing her pipe, out onto the water ahead.

It wasn’t quite an island, the stone that jutted up out of the sea. It was scarcely visible, only for the way the water broke around it: white surf glittering under the deep of stars.

“...that map,” Faris started to suggest, and of the same mind Butz drew it forth.

Raising his hand, he invoked a small light in his palm, letting the facet of stars line up to the night sky. The light seemed to pour to the stars themselves... or from them.

The triumphant grin on his face faded, along with the light from his palm. It was still uncannily bright.

“Do the stars look a lot... _closer_ to you?”

They did.

More like small, bright, colorful suns than pinpoints of light, as though the dome of the firmament was closing in on them from above.

Faris clambered over the railing and out onto the bowsprit, balancing with a lifetime’s confidence as she stepped out over the water.

Butz called after her.

She ignored him, eyes fixed on the wall of clouds rising in the distance. The storm roiled towards them on all sides, illuminated from within in shifting hues of blue and green, red and purple. Nothing natural. Not in the least.

All at once, the deck was a flurry of activity. Lanterns were lit, Leof shouted orders. The storm was upon them, and the wind ripped at Faris’ coat.

Butz called her name again, and Faris barely heard him. She glanced back to find that he climbed up onto the rail. He looked uncertain, but their eyes met, and he reached out for her.

A wave tossed the ship, and he flew forward. Crouching, one foot slipping dangerously on the slick wood, she made a wild grab for his hand, but his fingers slipped through hers and he fell towards the churning ocean.

Gritting her teeth, Faris dove in after him.

~*~

A waved washed over her, threatening to drag her against the sharp rocks and into the shallows. The sun beat down, searing her eyes and scorching her exposed skin.

She licked salt-cracked lips, and tasted blood.

Slowly, Faris came back to herself.

Another wave broke as she struggled to sit up. She choked on brine, swallowed, and redoubled her efforts, only to swear darkly when the stone she leaned her weight into sliced her hand. Water slithered and pooled under her jacket, plastering the linen of her tunic and her breeches to her skin.

Yet another wave broke. It didn’t reach past her shoulder, and she blearily watched it recede into the sea. Sucking in a breath, she steeled herself, and continued to her feet.

The air was chill enough that it left her shivering.

Still, she had her life and she had her sword. And so, she meandered down the beach, in search of her bearings. Stone turned to sand beneath her boots, littered with flotsam that had washed ashore.

She swallowed past the thick soreness in her throat.

Where the beach grew into the shore, clumps of harsh grass grew from the coarse ground. She meandered towards the higher ground, and dropped down to her knees amid the stringy, razor-sharp blades. Eyes closed, mouth set in determination and concentration, she felt down into the ground beneath her fingers. 

The water was deep, but she called it up out of the earth. It took a scarce few moments before it trickled up out of the dirt, washing over her knuckles.

The effort winded her.

Rinsing blood and sand from her hands, she drank her fill, and leaned back to regard the world around her. Her mind was already taking stock of what she had, and what else she’d need to survive.

Her eyes drifted to the remnants of a ship, scattered across the sands.

Her ship, most like.

Sighing, she shoved herself back to her feet. With a shrug of her shoulders, her jacket slid off her frame; she folded it over her arm as she picked her way back out onto the sand.

The crescent of the beach curved as she followed it along for several silent, aching minutes. Past its bow, Past its bow, Faris slowed to a stop. Further down the beach, there was a familiar man trudging slowly in her direction. Lifting his gaze from the sand below his feet, he saw her and stumbled.

Recovering swiftly, Butz called her name.

He offered a hesitant wave, then broke into a jog down the beach towards her. Once he reached her, his expression grew pensive; sliding his fingers down the back of his neck, he glanced out to sea. At length, as the silence dragged on between them, he forced himself to meet her gaze.

His mouth moved, but the words wouldn’t make it past his lips. His eyes flicked from her face to her salt-crusted tunic, and Butz reached for her cheek. Warmth flowed from his fingertips, healing scrapes and cuts and abrasions.

The power faded out again. His expression crumpled, and all at once Butz slipped his arms around her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And again, “I’m sorry.”

Faris didn’t push him away. Neither did she answer. She stood silently, listening to the sound of the ocean. The magic took away the chill, but didn’t reach the numb part of her.

Stiffly, she returned the embrace.

He wasn’t family like her crew, but they’d saved two worlds together and he was her dear friend. That still counted for something.

Besides, it wasn’t like this was the first time in her life that she and the sea hadn’t expressly seen eye to eye.

~*~

Neither spoke more than necessary.

The isle they found themselves on stretched from beach to beach, and it seemed for all the world that a large enough wave could wash it away. Still, it had a clump of tenacious vegetation that had sprouted up in the middle. Together, they foraged enough tough root vegetables for a meal. Rinsed in salt water and roasted by the fire, it gave them a bit of extra flavor they desperately needed.

The small fire, kindled of driftwood and a spark of magic, kept the night at bay. The oilskin bag that kept her pipe dry had done its job admirably, and Faris sat blowing smoke rings up into the sky. Butz reclined beside her, passing the stone that had brought them to this place between his hands. Her coat, thrown down and spread out, was almost big enough for the both of them.

His movements slowed to a standstill. Abruptly, Butz stirred, propping himself up on his elbows. Tearing his gaze away from the sky, he looked up at her.

“Faris... the stars are different.”

Faris glanced down at him, then up to see for herself. She hadn’t been paying the stars much mind, but she knew he was right.

“Wherever we are, it isn’t where we were.”

Blowing out a breath of smoke, Faris asked, “Tha’ helps us now, how?”

“I’m not sure it does.”

He fell silent. Faris curled her tongue around the flute of her pipe, thoughtfully.

She awoke with him at her back, to his arm draped over her.

~*~

“Faris?”

Butz’ voice drifted on the wind, through the scraggly excuse of a forest, and Faris turned from the water’s edge. Waves lapped at her calves as she cut a leisurely path back to shore, and she picked up her boots on the way.

If she took her time, well... the note he hit was uncertain, not _panicked_, and neither of them were going anywhere.

She found him crouched beside a hole – what looked to be a cellar door, which had been deeply concealed in the earth by a meshwork of roots grown over it. He stood as she made her way through the brush, and crouched herself to examine it.

Afternoon sunlight streamed down from above, giving enough murky light to see the bottom lined with some form of flagstone, but not what lie in the darkness beyond. The air that billowed up was cool, with a hint of damp, and smelled of musty earth.

Falling back to sit, Faris worked to pull on her boots. Butz paced the edge of the pit, looking up as she rose to her feet again.

“Looks old,” he remarked.

Faris intoned a brief hum of agreement, glancing at the trees around them. Finding a suitable few tangles of fallen branches, she wove them tightly together into two bundles. Returning to the hole, she passed one across to Butz, and the other she carried loosely.

As she crouched, measuring the distance below, Butz shifted his weight uneasily.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find down there.”

Faris didn’t bother looking up to answer.

“Stay behind me,” was all she said.

She landed softly enough. When she stood, the ceiling above her head was maybe half again her height. Nothing came at her out of the darkness. Summoning a small spirit of fire, she lit her torch.

There were two walls, formed of man-made brick. Back to one, Faris held the torch out left, then right into the darkness. The tunnel seemed to go a distance in either direction.

Butz landed more heavily behind her.

Picking a direction, Faris started left. The clip of her steps echoed faintly down the tunnel, mingled with Butz’ slower pace as he followed her along, and the sunlight faded behind them to a faint glimmer.

Faris checked her pace, and Butz nearly walked into her.

Something pale caught the light of the torch at her feet.

There were bones scattered along the flagstones. _Ancient_ bones.

Faris crouched to retrieve one, and stood staring at it. Butz peered at it past her elbow. It was brittle and heavily scored.

She dropped it again.

“Maybe-...” Butz didn’t finish that line of thought; his hand closed on her arm. “Did you hear that?”

Faris strained her ears. Her jacket creaked as she turned in the dark, and her boot scuffed on rock. Butz was breathing softly, but the sound of it washed over all else.

“Not a damn thi-...”

_...-ou want to play?_

Butz’ fingers tightened on her elbow. It was a whisper, strangled and garbled.

Then it _laughed_.

“Other way, I think,” Butz hissed, giving her arm a tug.

Faris only half-turned, and froze. The cellar door, though distant, should still have been visible, but all there was for light was her torch. Regardless, when Butz started to fall back, Faris cautiously followed his lead.

Soon, they hit a brisk pace. There was little telling how far they had gone, but the passage curved downward beneath their feet. At first, the slope was gentle, before taking several sharp, winding turns before it leveled out again.

A rush of tepid air washed over them from behind, raising the hair on the back of her neck. Butz sucked in a breath.

More bones littered the floor.

“Run,” Faris snapped.

Butz wasted no time in arguing. The unlit torch clattered to the floor as he let it slip from his fingers, and bolted down the tunnel.

Pacing herself, Faris followed until a distance had grown between them, and she could no longer see the flutter of his tunic in the darkness ahead. The rush of blood in her ears drowned out all else, except the distinct feeling that whatever was behind them was growing closer.

Then she turned, drawing her sword. Her eyes narrowed as she peered into the darkness, looking for some hint of movement.

Only darkness seemed to take up the entire corridor, pushing forward against the light. A pale pair of eyes opened, gleaming catlike in the light of the torch. 

She threw it at them.

“_Faris!_”

The light vanished, swallowed up into _nothing_.

Gritting her teeth, Faris bolted to follow the sound of Butz’ voice.

There was light up ahead, dim at first but growing brighter with every hurried step. The world opened into a chamber of mirrored glass. There was sunlight above, streaming through the translucent ceiling with the thickness of a river, and wisps of magic poured upward from the floor, slithering along the walls.

Butz grabbed for her hand, pulling her closer along with him to a stone altar in the center of the room. The darkness followed them, melting together with the light into a murky grey before overtaking it completely.

All the magic, all at once, made her dizzy. Butz closed his eyes, murmuring a cant. The altar took on a pale white glow, tendrils of which whispered around them.

The world melted and shifted.

They reappeared in a village square, to the surprise of the villagers going about their business. Shaky, Butz smiled and nodded to the oblique stares.

Ignoring the lot of them, Faris sheathed her sword, then reached into her jacket for her pipe.

~*~

It was a perfectly quaint village. No riches to speak of, but neither was it impoverished. With mountains on all sides, and seemingly little contact with the outside world, it was self-sustaining by necessity.

They hadn’t even heard tell of the world’s end.

Or its renewal.

Butz made himself right at home, absorbing the local tales and telling some of his own. Faris rolled her eyes at him when, in a tavern surrounded by new friends, he exaggerated one of hers. Downing the last of her tankard, she stretched.

Maybe she ought to have been flattered.

At the end of the night, they still ended up sharing a bed.

~*~

They had managed to procure the spare room above the tavern. Without travelers, there was little need for an Inn.

While Faris opted to sleep in, Butz rose with the sun, and vanished along with the vestiges of night. He subsequently returned from his explorations still early in the day, with an assortment of fruit, a bottle of cider, a wheel of cheese, and a loaf of bread so freshly baked that when Faris reached for it to tear a piece off, she found it still warm under her fingertips. She took the wedge of cheese he sliced from the wheel for her before carving off one of his own.

“No one has ever heard of Exodus,” he related as they ate. “They didn’t notice the world’s merging or the Void ripping apart the planet, either. Or the flying fortress, so this village might be from my father’s world.”

Reclining against the wall where she sat on the bed, Faris listened as he talked. The cider had an unfamiliar spice to it – it made it sweet, but not unpleasantly so.

“Someone told me he remembered a story of the last visitor, from his grandmother’s grandmother was alive. Someone else said something about not going outside on a new moon... And that’s another thing, considering how far off the beaten path they are, it’s strange there’s not more of a language barrier.”

There were a few moments of silence while he chewed, then Butz raised his fingers in a gesture of having remembered something more.

“Oh, and there’s a sage at the edge of town. I showed her this,” he placed the crystal sphere on the table. The very thing that had brought them here in the first place. “She said she’d never seen it, but she acted like...” Scratching the back of his head, he struggled to explain, “...like she knew what I was talking about. Maybe like she’d even expected the question.”

“An’...?”

This wasn’t the first weird village they’d encountered in all their travels. Maybe, like the phantom village, this place had been sucked into the Void. And like the phantom village, it was pulled back to the edge of reality once the world had righted itself.

Shrugging, Butz rolled the thing lightly a few inches back and forth under his hand.

“I don’t know. It was... weird. I guess. Is all.”

He brushed off his hands, leaning back in his chair.

“I tried to find... there are no _roads_ out of this town. None. These people... they’ve been here forever, and that’s... that’s just _it_.”

Her eyebrows rose, and Faris regarded him. A grin crept across his face at her expression, and the corner of her mouth twitched in reply.

“I’m not going to run.”

“Aye, that be the part what scares me.”

~*~

Two days rest, and the storm and island and the creature in the ground were but a lingering memory.

The seasons must have been temperate, for there were no travel provisions to be had. They packed what would store best into bags made for gathering, with extra blankets and water. They’d be traveling light, but with some hunting and foraging of their own, they ought to have been able to make it back to civilization.

With a tale or two to tell, no less.

Only they made it downstairs to the tavern below, and a crowd had gathered. Butz raised his hand, only to let it drop again when no one returned the greeting, and his already faint smile faded. Eerily silent, the room full of villagers watched them.

Once outside, Faris’ steps slowed, and every hair on the back of her neck stood on end. There was a crowd here, too – staring silently as they made their way forward. Faris moved in front of him, and Butz glanced at her but fell in at her elbow.

“You can’t leave.”

It was a woman in front of the crowd who had spoken.

Faris duly ignored her, continuing on.

“The beast will kill you if you leave.”

Another voice, thin and raspy.

“The beast will kill everyone if you leave.”

A little girl grabbed for his arm, fingers sharp and white against his ivory sleeve. Faris moved to shove her back, and the child stumbled.

The world... _flickered._

Like a shadow of a hearth fire.

Faris sucked in a sharp breath, reaching for the hilt of her sword. Tracing a symbol, Butz shouted a Word.

They were standing in a dead field of broken bones, surrounded by the skeletons of houses.

Rather than midmorning, it was the dark of night, with a storm boiling in they sky above their heads and blotting out the stars.

Without a word, or so much as a backward glance, Faris grabbed for Butz’ hand and moved swiftly for the edge of town. Thunder rumbled overhead, and as they grew nearer to the treeline, their hurried pace slowed.

Something dark and dreadful moved between trunks of trees that had broken and burned to char. A bloated behemoth, made of shadow and smoke and decay.

Out of the darkness, it _laughed_.

Butz murmured a spell of protection.

Faris closed her eyes, focusing on the chime in the back of her mind. The cantrip unwound itself on her lips, and another form began to take shape out of the night. The massive sea beast screamed a challenge, and the creature of darkness roared in reply.

The thundering clash gave them the opening to flee. Across the dead field, into the skeletal forest, with trees crunching as the battle crashed behind them. The charred forest gave way to sharp mountain stones, cutting a jagged climb upward.

Syldra’s cries followed them, anger and pain. Faris glanced back, willing her to stay strong for just that much longer; but the longer she held on, the deeper she felt the gouging marks rent into Syldra’s hide.

She let the ribbon of connection slip from her mind.

Syldra vanished along with it, swallowed by the darkness.

The shadow between the trees moved with a renewed sense of purpose, slithering after them and crashing through branches as it went.

On the jagged cliff above her, Butz slipped. The orb fell from his pocket, and he lunged to catch it, while Faris grabbed blind in an attempt to catch _him_. Rocks bit into them both as they tumbled, losing precious ground, but she managed to pin him to the steep mountainside.

Blood oozed from a scratch on his forehead. He blinked at her, dazed.

“I don’t think this is real,” he said.

Faris eyed him darkly, and he shook his head.

“I mean, yes, it’s real, but it’s not _real_, real,” he elaborated. “It’s _like the Void_ real.”

There was a scream behind them.

Digging her footing in, Faris stood to face it. She hauled Butz upright with her, and drew her sword. Butz stared at the crystal orb in his hand, eyes narrowing.

Another scream, rattling the pebbles underfoot.

A slow incantation, and the orb began to glow deep red in Butz’ hand. The flawless, curved surface of the crystal began to melt and molten under the power of Flare.

Another crash of thunder, and water poured from the sky.

~*~

She was underwater.

From deep instinct, she fought against the need to breathe, despite the burn in her lungs and the pressure on her chest. There was another body in the water with her, she realized, and her flailing caught a fistful of cloth. Faris kicked upward, struggling until she breached the surface, where she took in a deep lungful of air.

Butz wasn’t far behind her, sputtering and coughing up saltwater, and very nearly going under again.

A dark spire of rock jutted out of the water, and Faris made for it, dragging him along with her. A wave nearly slipped her off course, very nearly slipped them apart, but her hand found solid purchase, and she hauled him closer to her until he could get a hold of his own. 

The skies were clear.

Clinging to the rock, they regarded one another. Faris nodded subtly, and Butz winced, dashing salt water from the cut on his forehead.

“_Captain_!”

Her gaze was torn from him, to the ship in the distance. She could pick out individual members of her crew clustered at the bow. A short, exultant chuckle escaped her, and she shouted back, rising far enough out of the water to wave.

Diving back into the water, Faris swam to meet the ship as it coasted towards them.

Once they were both safely on deck, with a jubilant crew of pirates all around them, Faris shed her jacket, leaving it where it fell. Accepting a jug of fresh water from Leof, she took a long draught. Ignoring the chatter surrounding her, she glanced across the deck to where Butz sat with his own small entourage, and held his gaze for several long moments.

Setting the jug down, she strolled to where he sat and offered him a hand. He took it, and a smile cracked his lips as she hauled him to his feet.

Faris chased the _only slightly_ smug grin from his face with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally started entirely on a whim for challengeonthebigbridge's summer challenge. Which I _failed_. But by the end I had half a fic, and the idea kept biting me, so I finished it anyway. Thank you for the kick in the pants, challengeonthebigbridge!  
Please take this from me.


End file.
